31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Wild Beasts

Still catching up from the weekend. My second Creature Feature flick was:


Wild Beasts (1984)
Since I've been doing 31 Days I've always done a Creature Feature weekend that (mostly) consisted of 70's era 'animal attack' movies, like Piranha, Frogs and Kingdom of the Spiders. There's a particular style to these things that I enjoy (and enjoy making fun of) and they feel like a spiritual successor to the giant bug movies of the 1950's - replacing radiation with pollution/destruction of the environment. (And being much cheaper, as the animals are generally life-sized - except for Burt I. Gordon flicks.)

It also seems like a very American genre. (Although Australia makes a play with The Long Weekend and any number of killer croc movies.) I'm not sure why that is, beyond the widespread cultural awareness of pollution and the environment that the 70's had. I still remember the 'crying indian' ads, for instance. For whatever the reason, most - if not all - of the 70's 'nature rebels' films I've seen so far have been American. So when I saw there was an Italian entry (albeit late - it's from 1984), I just had to replace my original pick (Bert I. Gordon's Food of the Gods).

Fair warning - Wild Beasts was directed by Franco Prosperi of Mondo Cane fame. There are several scenes of real animal deaths/attacks that are disturbing (particularly a sequence of rats burning alive). These are legit horrifying and if you think that those will bother you in any way, I urge you to avoid watching the film. (They're still bothering me now.)

The Medium
Streaming on Shudder.

The Movie
The opening sequences of Wild Beasts treat us to a wailing 80's sax on the soundtrack and alternating visuals of a big European city, sewage and gray water running through open channels, and animals at a local zoo. It's cut like an 80's music video and does the job of conflating all of those elements into your expectations. Animals will be affected by pollution and get loose in the big city. The film does not disappoint on that front.

PCP gets into the water supply, animals go crazy, technology fails and suddenly roaming gangs of elephnants are strangling people with their trunks and stomping on their heads. I'm not kidding. That happens.

If it wasn't for the real animal deaths/woundings I think this would end up being one of my favorite 'guilty pleasure' films. It's terrible and awesome in equal measure. You get scenes of a cheetah chasing a convertible, rats eating a couple in a car, a tiger eating a priest in a subway car full of screaming people and a polar bear calmly stalking two children down a school hallway. It's just full of stuff that makes you go "did I really just see elephants cause a plane crash?" Yes, yes you did.

You also get to hear lines like, "What do you mean you can't find elephants? You know what elephants are? They're elephants, not lice!" And "She's not crazy, she's being chased by a cheetah!"

There is a nominal plot line involving a zookeeper and his cop buddy/chauffer and a reporter who happens to be the worst parent on earth, but really it's just so we have a few recognizable faces to give us plot details while the animals run through a street fair or attack a dance class.

The animal attacks are all at night and are staged and shot in a way that makes them far more effective than most films in the genre. There is something amazing about seeing a cheetah just roaming the streets of a shopping district. (You get the sense the cat is just as freaked out by all the mannequins as I would be.) The actors are also often in the same shot with the animals, which adds a sense of danger that the quick-cut or racked focus shot doesn't accomplish in other films.

In most American animal attack films the intransigence and incompetence of the authorities is what allows the attacks to propagate, but in Italy the police station is futuristic (for the 80's), including a glass wall with calculations.( Apparently police cars are organized via complex orbital mechanics in Italy.) This allows them to get the warning out pretty quickly and the authorities in general seem competent - albeit stretched thin in the face of attacks and a power outage (caused by those elephants and the plane crash earlier).

In addition to the animal attacks there are car chases, plane crashes, explosions and knife attacks. It's like a weird combination of animal attack film and disaster movie. The plot point about the PCP comes late in the film and is followed immediately by... it wearing off. The animals start to go docile just as most animal attack films are gearing up. But don't worry, things aren't over quite yet.

You see, the children in the dance class have all been drinking the water as well.

Bottom Line
Wild Beasts alternates between being hilarious, effective and disturbing. I really wish the filmmakers hadn't used killed real animals or used them in such disturbing situations, because the film doesn't need it, and their inclusion means I can't really recommend or enjoy it.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Squirm

I did manage to get my Creature Feature in, but as usual, I'm behind. Here's the writeup for the first. Hopefully have the second (along with tonight's film) tomorrow:


Squirm (1976)
 Squirm is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not really a good movie - it looks cheap, the acting is... earnest, I guess is the best you can say for it. The monster is, well, it's worms. Not really high on the 'scare the crap out of you' meter - somewhere above slugs and bunny rabbits, though, and I've watched (if not enjoyed) films with those as the monsters. The hero is the most nebishy nebish who ever ordered an egg cream, the 'hothouse flower' love interest is more 'backyard flower garden' and the sheriff is slimier than the worms.

No, I can't really recommend Squirm, and yet I've been looking forward to watching it again. I think I like the way it plays things straight, despite the subject matter and general cheap feel. It's unwilling to make fun of its cast or the story as a whole. In some films that dogged seriousness can be a detriment, weighing things down and leaving you unable to even enjoy making fun of it (sorry, Night of the Lepus). In other films it seems to add to the fun and makes you feel like "it's not the best, but I think it was the best they could do." They're taking the work seriously, but not themselves.

The Medium
I tried the Midnight Pulp app, streaming via Chromecast. The quality was surprisingly good for that setup, though it's not a film that will win any cinematography awards.

The Movie
Somewhere along the coast of Georgia an intense storm causes power outages all over the town of Fly Creek. The high voltage power lines lying on the ground cause the local worm population to begin crawling out of the ground. Meanwhile, a love triangle develops between local girl Geri, her neighbor (and apprentice worm farmer) Roger, and city-boy Mick. Soon Mick and Geri are finding skeletons in backyards, worms in egg creams and possible sexual tension (though it may just be the heat). The electricity is making the worms crazy, you see, and these worms have teeth! Well, a few of them, anyway.

The worms are way more disturbing than the invertebrates in Slugs - and the way bloodworms eject their mouths in order to bite is reminiscent of the creatures in the underrated Deep Rising. Unfortunately, these are normal sized worms and, while disgusting, it's hard to take them seriously as a menace. At least in limited numbers.

Geri and Mick try and figure out what's going on - Mick even enlists Geri's younger sister Alma in a little B&E at the local dentist to try and identify a skull - but darned if the worms (and their victims) seem to keep disappearing just as the local sheriff shows up. The sleazy law man (always on the make) takes an instant dislike to Mick and would do more than threaten - if he had any ambition, energy, charisma or modicum of talent.

At some point Geri, Roger and Mick all go fishing for some reason - I really can't remember why Mick set it up - and Mick is bitten by a worm. When he leaves to get patched up (and commit that felony I mentioned earlier) Roger takes advantage of the alone time with Geri to get all rape-y. However, Geri manages to shove him off and he gets a face full of worms before running off. (He also manages to knock out Mick along the way - using a gently tossed sheet of plywood.)

All this is leading to nightfall, when the enraged worms finally start an all-out attack. Yes - the masses of roiling, pink tubes look like what they probably are - rubber worms - but in vast numbers it has an unsettling, Blobb-like quality. The last 15-20 minutes are the best of the film as Roger attacks along with the worms and the sheriff gets his comeuppance. One memorable sequence includes worms coming out of a shower head - leading to a "too-full closet" moment as a veritable wall of squirming pink comes falling out of an open door.

Despite some pretty intensive infrastructure being destroyed - including a giant steel tower - one guy manages to get the electricity on the next day, presumably saving the rest of the town and - dare I say it - the rest of the country. I wish he'd come up here to Maine where there's roughly 400,000 people without power today.

The Bottom Line
Yes it's cheap. Yes it's cheezy. Yes it spends way too much time trying to make Don Scardino into a heroic action figure. Still, Squirm has a low-budget charm that reminds me of similar films, like Frogs or Day of the Animals. And Roger's 'worm-face' makeup is actually pretty good. So if you watch it and don't like it - well, I told you it was bad. If you watch it and you DO like it - I promise I won't tell anybody.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
The classic "giant monster attacks a city" movie (Gojira wouldn't be released until the following year). Also Ray Harryhausen's first solo joint. Those looking for the kind of subtext about atomic fears and science unleashed that later giant monster/bug movies would sprinkle on like that "Salt Bae" guy putting salt on a steak will be sorely disappointed here. Yes, the creature is set free by a hydrogen bomb, but that's the only function of the device. There's no further reference or use of it. It's an action movie, as much of a ride as the rollercoaster the Beast destroys in the final act.

The Beast was one of the earliest giant monster movies I ever saw, and for much of my life his design - by the inimitable Ray Harryhausen - was my platonic ideal of the giant monster. Enormous, scaly, and with a tendency to munch on humans like a moviegoer munching on popcorn. Other, later, monsters ended up supplanting him in my affections (sorry Rhedosaurus - Godzilla's got atomic breath), but he's still my first kaiju love.

How can you not love that face?

The Medium
At some point I bought a super-cheap DVD with both The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and Them! on it. I lend it out once and a while and it happened to rotate back in while I was casting about for something familiar and old-fashioned to watch. I've since gotten Them! on blu-ray, but haven't picked up Beast yet.

The Movie
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms starts off with a narration introducing us to some kind of a scientific test in the arctic. (I love that this is called Operation Experiment, which sounds like it should be its own 50's monster movie.) It becomes clear that this is a hydrogen bomb test. The stock footage of ice breaking up and melting under the effect of the explosion has a different impact now than it did when I first saw it. While taking readings after the blast two scientists see a giant monster, though only one, Tom Nesbitt, survives to tell the tale.

"Global warming sucks."

He isn't initially believed, of course, but with a string of strange events - boat sinkings, the destruction of a lighthouse (Maine shout-out!), and some crushed buildings - and the corroboration of a witness, Nesbitt manages to get the backing of paleontologist Thurgood Elson and his assistant, Lee Hunter. Together they plot the sightings on a map and Elson opines that the Beast may be heading to New York, where the fossil remains of a similar creature have been found.

"I have the sudden urge to do something stupid and suicidal."

Soon the military is dangling the elder scientist like fishing lure into the deep waters of the Hudson River Canyon. Sure enough, the beast shows - unfortunately for Elson and his pilot, the monster seems to have an appetite for diving bells. Not long after that the Beast comes ashore in Manhattan.

There are a ton of things that will be familiar to you from Beast's spiritual successors. The boats sunk by the monster, the map on which the sinkings (and other 'mysterious' happenings) are plotted out, the insistence by scientist on studying the creature, the military lining up it's hardware to fight the thing, all the running and screaming. Even the creature somehow disappearing during the day - where the hell does it go, anyway? Bloomingdales?

Probably just seeing the sites - hey, that's Brooklyn Bridge!

One thing I'd forgotten was the plot point about the creature's toxic blood. Unlike some other giant saurians I could mention, the Beast is actually vulnerable to the military hardware - bazookas, anyway. However, it turns out that its blood carries deadly prehistoric pathogens - and any large-scale destruction of the beast would result in a massive outbreak, possibly killing millions. This makes the obvious solution - blow the crap out of it - unfeasible. Which leads us to SCIENCE! saving the day - specifically a radioactive isotope that will (apparently) burn the creature up from the inside out.

That's right. We killed the creature with heartburn.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' strength is in its monster, and any time Harryhausen's work is on the screen it's magic. From the attack on the lighthouse (lifted directly from Ray Bradbury's short story on which the film is based, "The Fog Horn") through the initial landing in New York City, the stop motion work is fantastic. The surrounding story of Nesbitt, his growing relationship with Lee, and his attempts to get the authorities (including a pre Thing From Another World Kenneth Toby) to listen to him are decent as well, though not as much fun.

The big set piece of the monster attacking Coney Island (it seems particularly pissed at a rollercoaster) is excellent as well - though the irony of using radiation to destroy a monster let loose by radiation seems lost on the filmmakers. I still prefer the scenes in Manhattan - including the famous scene of the Beast eating a policeman - as the work Harryhausen does to integrate the monster with the building and people is just outstanding.

Eat more people! Man, now I feel like a bad person...

The Bottom Line
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms is a classic monster movie and the inspiration for a slew of 1950's creature features (some better, lots worse) . Worth seeing for some of Ray Harryhausen's best work, even if black and white giant monsters aren't your usual thing.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Creature Double Feature: Grizzly and Orca

I've been calling these weekends 'creature features' since I first started doing them, but they're really the 'animals attack' sub-genre, and even more specifically they're the 70's version. Ants, spiders, frogs, fish, birds and even rabbits have featured in previous posts.  At some point I'll have to spread out and start doing monsters or maybe move beyond the 70's, but there are still plenty of films to go - I haven't touched The Swarm or Phase IV or The Long Weekend yet!

This time around I thought I'd go with one-word-title ripoffs of Jaws. Grizzly fits the theme perfectly, but Orca, as it turns out, is something else. I'd already rented it, however, and my current blizzard of migraines (3 today) means I'm typing (and thinking) too slowly to fit another film in. Seems to be its own theme this year - not enough time!

The Medium

Both of these films were via Amazon - Grizzly is available via Prime and I rented Orca (another reason for not slotting in a new film - my budget). The quality of both films was just okay - but I'm not sure how either of them would have benefited from an HD picture. (Though some shots in Orca are picturesque.)

The Movies

Grizzly

It's an extremely busy late-season weekend at a national park and head ranger Mike Kelly (Christopher George) is short-handed. He doesn't have enough people to keep track of all the campers and back-packers, but it should be fine because the park has no natural predators. All of the bears have been moved to higher country, outside of the park. Unfortunately, one didn't get the eviction notice.

How awesome is the tagline for this movie? "18 feet of gut-crunching, man-eating terror!" It promises much in the way of gory animal vs human action. Despite the tagline, however, Grizzly is not very good. A direct clone of Jaws, Grizzly features the conflicted moral authority in Kelly, the clueless bureaucrat  whose concern for appearance and the bottom line gets people killed, the too-fascinated-for-his-own-good scientist and the hardened local (chopper pilot and Vietnam vet in this instance).

Ever since I watched Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man I've been less likely to enjoy bears as antagonists/protagonists in film.  However, the bear in this movie is hard to take seriously. The gore scenes are just amateur hour - I laughed out loud during the first attack when an arm goes flying across the clearing. Actually, I often laughed out loud at this movie, and I'm fairly sure I wasn't supposed to. The bear himself is considerably smaller than 18 feet in height when seen against something - like a watchtower - that it can be compared to. Most of the attacks consist of the actor and a stuffed bear arm. It's not Night of the Lepus ridiculous, but it's close.

The story beats of the film are familiar to anyone who's seen Jaws - including the 'drunk yahoos flood the area hoping to get the creature for themselves' sequence, the 'you're fired!' scene and the 'I'm drinking because I blame myself' scene. It's not note for note, but it's damn familiar. In the end the three main characters (there's a photographer who I THOUGHT was going to be a major character, but whose plot gets dropped halfway through the film) go off after the bear themselves - both on horseback and in a helicopter. This goes about as well as it went in Jaws - except everyone but the main character dies. We do see a bear get exploded by a rocket launcher, however. It's not as cool as it sounds.

Things that stood out:

- The bear really likes to knock body parts off of things. In addition to the arm and a kids leg, the standout is a horse decapitation. I imagine that this is how mobsters get horse heads to put in beds.

- a story about 'herds' of grizzly bears stalking and killing a tribe of Native Americans is just not on the same level as Quint's Indianapolis story.

- It's apparently warm enough in fall to strip down to your underwear and 'dip your toes' in a waterfall. When you know there's a killer bear on the loose.

- You can explode a bear with a rocket launcher and have it all be a neat and tidy area of fire, rather than an immense, bloody splatter zone.

The Bottom Line

William Girdler's first animal attack film is a bit of a clunker and it made me appreciate how much better Day of the Animals - also with Christopher George - is. What does work is some of the character interactions and some of the scenery. It would be quite fun to watch with a group of slightly inebriated friends. Not so much alone and sober in a cold basement.

Orca

I saw Orca a long time ago - I think when it was on HBO in the 80's - and I remembered exactly two things about it: Richard Harris was in it, and Bo Derek gets her leg bitten off. My memory was fuzzy enough that I expected it to be another straight forward Jaws clone. No matter its flaws, Orca is more than that, at least. It's actually much closer to a revenge thriller - only here, the Rambo character is played by the killer whale.

Nolan, played by still-the-best-Dumbledore Richard Harris, is trying to raise enough money to pay off the mortgage on his boat and head back to Ireland. At first his scheme involves trying to capture a great white shark, but when he witness an orca kill a great white he changes his target. Unfortunately for him, the whale, his crew and the whole town, he completely botches the capture. He ends up killing the female of a bonded pair -by accident - and the whale spontaneously aborts when she's first captured.

With his mate and unborn child dead, the orca becomes fixated on Nolan and starts a reign of terror designed to force Nolan back on to the sea, where the killer whale can finally get its revenge.

I know, it sounds pretty stupid - and there's definitely a huge burden of disbelief to suspend here - but the movie plays it all with deadly seriousness. I mean, we've got Charlotte Rampling pontificating about how intelligent orcas are and Richard Harris (still-the-best-Marcus-Aurelius ) giving a monologue about how he empathizes with the whale because a drunk driver killed his own wife and child. It's a bit overwrought, to be honest, and it's really more than an 'animal attack' movie can bear. It's ambitious - but it's still Bo Derek getting her leg bit off that I'm going to remember years from now, not Harris' haunted gaze as the whale leads them deep into the arctic ice fields.

I actually wish the movie had realized that the whale is the hero of the piece much earlier in the narrative. The human beings aren't evil - they're just selfish and short-sighted. After several attacks on the town - including an explosive set piece with a fuel line and the tanks above town - the villagers themselves are the ones that drive Nolan and his crew back onto the water. To be fair, another day or two and the whale would probably have figured out how to lurk in back alleys, knifing people at random.

The Bottom Line

Orca is too heavy to be much fun and too goofy a premise to be taken seriously. There's some interesting stuff there - and at least it tries to be a deeper creature feature than normal - but it's just not as good a film as it wants to be. And poor Bo Derek.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies - Night of the Lepus/Day of the Animals

70's Creature Feature - Night of the Lepus, Day of the Animals

I'm bundling these two films together for my traditional 70's Creature Feature weekend. In the past I've watched films like Frogs, Piranha, Kingdom of the Spiders and Prophecy. I was originally thinking of watching Squirm as part of this, but the synergy of the two titles for Night of the Lepus and Day of the Animals won me over. (Only watching one per day this weekend, though - raking and bagging 20 bags of leaves ate into my movie time.)

I've actually seen DotA before - it was a staple of late 70's/early 80's late night TV. NotL is new to me, though it's been on my 'must watch' list for a while. Any movie that has giant rabbits as the antagonist has got to have something going for it, right? Right?

The Medium
I actually paid for Night of the Lepus (in more ways than one). I rented it on Amazon streaming and that's three bucks I'll never get back. Day of the Animals was recently released on Blu-ray, but I'm never going to pay $20 for a William Girdler film. I would have rented it on streaming, but it's not available there either. I ended up watching it on YouTube in a pan-and-scan version. As it approximates how I saw it on TV way back when, I didn't mind. I'm sure the picture quality is fantastic on Blu-ray, but if I want to watch dodgy bird attacks in high-def I'll watch The Birds.

The Movies

Night of the Lepus
Night of the Lepus is terrible, really. It's poorly shot, written, acted and edited. The special effects are, well, decidedly not special. Other than a few moments - distinguished primarily by a guy in a bunny suit - it's not even in 'so bad it's good' territory. I had a hard time not falling asleep during the film, and was primarily sustained by the occasional bunny attack and those aforementioned 'guy in a suit' moments.

Also, scenes of bunnies having a night out at a nice restaurant are fun.

The setup involves a rabbit being dosed with hormones to try and control overpopulation on a desert ranch. It gets released accidentally and soon - giant rabbits! They kill an old prospector - maybe he was dressed as a carrot - which leads to the rancher and some officials dynamiting their burrow. Of course they're rabbits, so they dig their way out and go on a slow motion rampage across indifferently constructed miniature sets before finally being massacred by guns and an electrified train track.

It's possible that this film could be fun with the right group of people. It's completely ridiculous, but played absolutely straight by the actors and director. The rabbits themselves are the most un-menacing group of lethargic bunnies you could think of and even when covered in blood or foaming at the mouth just look cute. Some of the interior sets are okay - and it's fun to see a herd of rabbits hopping in slow motion down the miniature streets of a small town - but in general not a lot of consistency has gone into the effects. Sometimes the rabbits are 'as big as wolves' and sometimes they're as big as elephants.

The terror!

The 'best' parts are those in which a rabbit attacks an individual, because it's obviously a guy in a bunny suit. It's not even hidden particularly well.

I say that the acting is bad, but it's not really atrocious - at least from the leads. They just seem tone-deaf to the kind of movie they're in. It's not a western, despite appearances. Rory Calhoun in particular seems a little lost dealing with giant bunnies. As for DeForest Kelley, you would think after the first few times he appears I'd stop thinking "Hey, it's Dr. McCoy from Star Trek!" You would be wrong.

"Okay, now look like you're all contemplating your career choices.... perfect!"

---

Day of the Animals
"God sent down a plague down on us because we're just a bunch of no-good fellas."

Day of the Animals is a lot better film. Not to say that it's a 'good' film in any traditional sense, but it's more fun and interesting than NotL - for particular values of 'fun' and 'interesting.'

DotA follows a group of back-country hikers as they head out to enjoy a week in the woods. Unfortunately for them, the ozone layer has been depleted to such a significant degree that ultraviolet radiation is turning the animals crazy. Within a couple of days some of them are dead and anyplace about five thousand feet is under assault be animals - bears, mountain lions, snakes, dogs and a whole lot of birds.

Actually, the birds seem to be in charge in this movie. Nominally the animals going crazy should result in a frenzy of animals attacking each other, but they all seem to know that it's Man that needs to be attacked. The birds always seem to be present and coordinating things.

The characters are extremely broadly drawn and thin. There's the out-of-place single mother and her son, the young couple, the older couple having marital troubles, the jackass ad-exec, a professor, a news woman, an ill ex-football player, and the obligatory Native American Who Senses Something Is Wrong. They're led by Steve Buckner (Christopher George), a man's-man who knows the back country well and runs these excursions for city folks who want to get away from it all. That's pretty much all you get, and all you need to know.

After the folks head up the mountain there's a scene in the local town diner where we get some exposition about the ozone layer. Things are pretty relaxed in this town. Relaxed enough that the sheriff and his deputies can indulge in a beer, some chili fries and a game of poker during the work day. Menacing music plays when the sheriff orders dessert. "Damn, the sheriff ordered pineapple pie - with ICE CREAM. Shit is getting real."

That night, a wolf attacks the camp. Even with the buildup, the wolf attack is startling and effective. Don't get used to it, though. The next day Buckner decides to send the woman who was attacked and her estranged husband up the mountain to a ranger station. While it's actually refreshing for there to be no "We should all head back." "Hell No! I paid good money for this trip!" scene, it still seems a little irresponsible. I mean, we're talking days of travel for an injured woman.

This movie should be called Leslie Nielsen - Super-Asshole. His character is pretty much a jackass all the time.

"Has it been five minutes yet? I want to know if I can say something sexist or racist again."

The husband and wife are attacked almost immediately. "MAN-DEEE!!!!" There's a pretty awesome bird attack, but the blue screen fall of the cliff, not so much.

I was just going to do screencaps of Leslie Nielsen, but I had to do at least one other. For balance.

Back down in the town the sheriff is awoken by a deputy telling him that the military is taking over and evacuating the town, as animals are attacking all over. The sheriff responds by getting a snack. "I'll get in to the office to deal with martial law - right after I have myself a piece o' this here chicken..." He's attacked by rats, but eventually makes it into town to help with the evacuation. Evacuation looks a lot more realistic than in Night of the Lepus.

Up on the mountain the group is attacked by mountain lions and separates into reasonable people and jackass followers. Those following Nielsen's character, Jensen, head up the mountain - further into the danger zone - to try and reach the same ranger station that the married couple tried earlier. Jensen, affected by the same radiation, makes the leap from 'asshole' to 'psychopath' really fast - murdering the young husband and trying to rape his wife. Then he decides he's gonna wrestle a bear. Things go well. For the bear.

Soon the bear will have him in a half-Nielsen!
I'm sorry. I'll get my coat.

Girdler tries to cover up how lame the animal attacks are with lots of noise and quick cuts, but it doesn't really help. And if the sun is what's causing the animals to go crazy, why do they almost always attack at night?

The estranged husband from the older couple somehow makes it down to town with a little girl he's rescued earlier. They're set upon by snakes and dogs. When the first truck they get into doesn't start he tries to get to his own car, which is jammed full of rattlesnakes. The lesson is, "Never try."

Get the Blu-ray and you could see those nipples in HD.

After that it's all dog attacks down the line, as if they'd run out of money for the other animal trainers. There are a lot of German Shepherds. And dog punching. I've never seen so much dog punching in my life.

And then it's over, just like that. All the affected animals die. The sun returns to normal. It's a bit anti-climactic, but still better than the ending of Night of the Lepus.

The Bottom Line
Night of the Lepus was excruciating to watch, but I kind of enjoyed Day of the Animals. I'm not sure if it's the gleeful level of cheese or if it was just so much better in comparison to NotL.  If you can only watch one, make sure it's Leslie Nielsen, Super Asshole - you'll  be happier for it.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Killer Croc Double Feature

It took a couple of attempts (had to return one copy of Lake Placid), but finally got my double bill of crocodilian action going this weekend. There are a ton of horror movies about crocodiles or alligators, but I decided to stick with two I'd seen before and enjoyed. I already watched the awesome Alligator  last year. Maybe next year we'll try Black Water or Eaten Alive.

Lake Placid

Movies set in Maine always take a bit more to swallow as a resident. I'm sure this is true of folks who live in other places when they go and see a movie set in their neck of the woods. It's always more remote, more scenic, and more dangerous in the movies. Trying to imagine a lake in Lincoln County that's a mile from the ocean, 25 miles from the nearest town, and that only has one camp on it? That's almost as hard to believe as a 30 foot croc having swum there from Asia. (Also - no brown or grizzly bears in Maine, sorry.) Now if the camp was owned by a rich person from away...

I'm not sure of the exact circumstances that lead to me seeing Lake Placid for the first time. Odds are I simply decided that the odds on seeing another giant crocodile film in the theater were pretty slim. I was pleasantly surprised, however, and about the time the deputy has his head chomped off I had bought in. Yeah, it was silly - but it was willing to embrace the silliness and toss in a little gore for spice.

I have friends who dislike the movie quite a bit. It was written by David E. Kelly, and I've heard it called "Ally McBeal in the Woods." Luckily I've never seen Ally McBeal, nor any other David E. Kelly show that I can think of (runs to IMDB). Oh, damn - I did watch Picket Fences. But I liked Picket Fences too. Ah well, the point is none of the stuff that seems to bother them - the woman angry about a relationship breakup (that sounds like a bad relationship anyway), the wacky characters defined mostly by quirks and bon  mots - none of that stuff bothers me. I dunno - maybe I was distracted by the giant crocodile.

The Medium
I ended up watching this via Amazon streaming. The only copies the local Bull Moose had were either Full Screen or the new Blu-ray. I like the movie, but not enough to fork out Blu-ray money for it. I'd purchased a Full Screen copy without realizing it and decided to return it, rather than deal with pan-and-scan. (I used the money from the return to pick up Cloverfield and [REC], so it wasn't a complete waste of time.)

The picture quality was good - it's been consistently better on Amazon than on Netflix lately. There are some really nice shots, particularly of the lake, so it was nice to have a good quality stream.

The Movie
A biologist studying beavers (shut up) in a remote Maine lake is savagely attacked and bitten in half (he's pretty lively for all that - at least for a few moments). The local authorities ask for an expert from New York to examine a tooth that's been recovered from the body and the museum sends Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda). Kelly isn't exactly a fan of fieldwork, but she's willing to go to get away from a co-worker with whom she's had a bad breakup. She gets to Maine and examines the tooth where she quickly identifies it.

Guess what it is. Go on, guess.

Sheriff Keogh (Brendan Gleason) and Game Warden Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) aren't sure the snarky (and somewhat flaky) paleontologist is correct, but they head to the lake to investigate. They're quickly joined by Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), an eccentric mythology expert who thinks that crocodiles are godly.

God, this really does sound stupid, doesn't it?

It all somehow works, though. The comedic bits and character interactions are all balanced by crocodile attacks and some pretty salty language from Betty White. She plays Mrs. Bickerman, the only resident of the lake and someone who readily admits to killing her husband while hiding the fact that she also knows about the monstrous crocodile. She's awesome. And really foul-mouthed. In 1999 I was not expecting that from the Golden Girl, so it made me giggle each time she muttered "cocksuckers."

I name all my cows 'cocksucker'

The alligator attacks are all well done and are generally suspenseful. The bit where the poor deputy is decapitated in a swim-by attack got a loud laugh from me in the theater, earning me several dismayed looks by my fellow audience members.

Pullman and Fonda are honestly a bit vanilla in their roles. Pullman in particular sometimes looks like he's only there for the paycheck. Gleason and Platt are pretty good, though, and their dynamic provides most of the fun as far as human characters go.

Are we having some kinda bromance thing happening here?

In typical giant "nature attacks" fashion an overly complicated plan to take the croc alive is hatched, leading to some fun with helicopters and cows in slings ("She looks like an enormous teabag.") Surprisingly, the monster survives the final encounter and is last seen headed down state on a flatbed. (I haven't seen the sequels to this movie - of which there are 2 - but I would hope the next one starts off with the croc breaking free from the flatbed on Interstate 95 around, say, Worcester.)

The Bottom Line
It's not going to be for everyone, but there's plenty of fun to be had in Lake Placid. There's quirky characters, action-packed set pieces and the occasional decapitation. I didn't expect much when I first saw it and was pleasantly surprised. Go in with low expectations and you might be surprised as well.

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Rogue

This is an altogether different film, though the basics are the same: disparate group of characters is menaced by enormous crocodile. There is some humor, but it is primarily a serious monster movie. It's one of the better "nature attacks" films I've seen, and I'd put it up there with Alligator as one of my top two crocodilian films.

Holy crap, I have a top ten list of crocodilian films.

I first saw Rogue on a whim. It was on Netflix streaming and I'd heard nothing but good things about the director's previous film, Wolf Creek. I enjoyed it immensely and was surprised at the overall level of quality.

The Medium
I bought the 'Unrated' DVD release of Rogue specifically for 31 Days. It looks pretty sharp, even on the big TV. I have no idea what was added to make this 'Unrated' - it seems substantially the same as the version I saw on streaming. (It's possible it was this version, come to think of it.) There are a handful of extras, including a making-of documentary and a commentary track. (There is a Blu-ray release, but there are no extras on the US version.)

The Movie
A travel writer, Pete (Michael Vartan) joins a disparate group of tourists on a crocodile viewing river cruise. Although there's a short encounter with some locals, the trip is mostly a pleasant diversion. When they are about to turn around and head back one of the tourists sees a distant distress flare. The boat operator and guide, Kate (Radha Mitchell) informs them that they'll have to check it out - despite the fact that she can't raise her base on the radio.

The characters are all quickly and economically presented - Pete is a world weary snob, Kate is the pretty-but-tough local who loves the land, there's the camera-nerd/jackass, the family with an ill member, the pushy housewife and others. It's all done fairly well and there are even moments that have a certain depth to them. One character quietly releases ashes into the river, observed only by the girl whose mother is sick. She turns and hugs her mother tightly. It sounds maudlin, but it was a lovely bit.

The movie is packed with recognizable actors. Michael Vartan was in Alias (and, in a bit of synchronicity, in a couple of episodes of Ally McBeal as well). Radha Mitchell was in Pitch Black and Silent Hill amongst other things. Sam Worthington plays one of the local toughs. There was a male actor who I knew I should recognize but just couldn't place until he'd been eaten - turns out he's Robert Taylor who's currently starring in the A&E series Longmire (as well has having played Agent Jones in The Matrix). And of course there's John Jarratt, who played Mick Tayler in Wolf Creek.

I'm gonna be in the highest grossing movie of all time? Well hot damn!

Eventually the boat finds a secluded area of the river and is immediately attacked by a huge crocodile. They wreck the boat on a small island which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a tidal river. Eventually the tide is going to come in and they'll all be at the mercy of the croc.

It's a standard 'nature attacks' story, isolating a group of strangers and watching them struggle with the monster and each other. It's done extremely well here, though. There's real tension and scares to be had and the director, Greg McLean, does the smart thing by keeping the croc hidden or revealed only in pieces for much of the movie. There's a scene where the survivors are arguing about something and there's a splash. They all turn to find one of their number (who was standing too close to the river edge) is gone - you only see the barest glimpse of a huge tail disappearing beneath the water. The guy didn't even get a chance to scream. Where that sort of scene would have been played for laughs in Lake Placid it's all serious business here.

"... and that concludes our safety lecture for today."

I appreciated the fact that no one is a complete asshole. People do stupid, selfish things as the tension mounts, but they're understandable in context. Even the 'hero' is only put in the position to save someone by accident - he slips and falls into the croc's lair. All the actors do a good job, with no one standing out as a weak link.

The monster effects are top-notch when finally shown and the croc is scary as hell. The cinematography is also to be commended, with some of the most spectacular footage of the Australian countryside that I've ever seen. It might be full of killer crocs, but it sure made me want to go visit anyway.

The Bottom Line
Rogue is a top notch monster movie of the 'nature gone rogue' variety. It's above average in pacing, writing, acting, effects, and cinematography. If you see only one giant crocodilian movie, this is the one to see.